Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Recipe #59: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/lemon-cream-cheese-cupcakes-109592.aspx

Well, the previous recipe (Updated Fettuccine Carbonara) was a "healthier" recipe so this one is meant to offset all that healthy crap. What good is dessert if it can't be a little wicked now and then?

Now then, I made these cupcakes on a night with dinner guests coming over. I also made salad but that's boring. Normally, I don't like to make recipes for the first time when other people will be tasting them (drop-and-go visits don't count), but I figured I'd give it a shot this time. I also had to make these in a hurry because the other chef needed the kitchen to make his main-course lasagna. You didn't really think I fed my guests nothing but salad and cupcakes, did you?

Again, another Kraft recipe so hard to screw it up too badly. I had some trouble finding the required lemon pudding mix so I used lemon pie filling. Same difference, if you ask me. I already had cream cheese on hand (with only a wee bit used) so I just used that up. After a bad lemon juice experiment a while ago, I've taken to using a fresh lemon instead of buying a bottle of the juice, using a smidge, then letting it sit in the fridge for ages until foisting it on my parents when it came time for me to move. For the record, lemon juice is not supposed to foam when poured. Maybe an initial wee bit, but it shouldn't stay foamy. Sorry, Dad.

I liked the idea of adding a bit of lemon zest to the icing before smearing on cupcakes, but unfortunately, by the time I read that, I'd already chucked the remainder of my lemon. Alas. I didn't go so far as to garnish my cupcakes with a fancy bit of lemon peel either. Instead, the dinner guests got to garnish their own cupcakes with my large collection of different kinds of sprinkles! Much more fun if you ask me.

So how were the cupcakes, you ask? Well, everyone said they were really good. Not fancy like some of the ones you can get in the pricey shops that are springing up everywhere, but homemade (does using cake mix count as cheating if I did all the work?) and fun to accessorize. I might make them more lemon-y somehow next time, and one person said they didn't love the vanilla cake mix, but overall, they were well received. The cupcakes were competing with yummy homemade cookies at the same meal, so now this house has an awful lot of cupcakes. Oh, and you might want to half the icing segment. It makes a lot. Better yet, come on over and I'll give you free cupcakes and my leftover icing!

Updated Fettuccine Carbonara

Recipe #58: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/updated-fettuccine-carbonara-90434.aspx

Agh, cooking........ I'm so out of the pattern of late. I'm trying to get back in the kitchen more regularly so bear with me while I figure out my life.

Anyway, this recipe wasn't too complex. It IS a Kraft recipe. I was intrigued by the idea of them having "improved" on classic fettuccine carbonara to make it healthier. I do love my pasta, and healthier versions are better in the long run. If this isn't true, feel free to keep that tidbit to yourself.

Let's see: there was a pasta sale at the grocery store so you might see more pasta recipes in the near future. I didn't get the whole wheat kind this time. Lucky for me, it wasn't required to be such. I opted for store brand on the cream cheese and dressing, but if you don't tell Kraft, neither will I. Didn't have skim milk - this is the house of 1%. No fresh herbs live here. I can remember to water plants on occasion, but don't use herbs often enough so I used dried parsley for this recipe. The parmesan definitely wasn't of the light variety. I'm not usually the cheese purchaser in this house...

I could have done a better job with the sauce in terms of blending/whisking it into submission. My cream cheese kept trying to hide in the middle of the whisk and, retrospectively, I should have used a smaller saucepan. Next time. The sauce looked too thin to me prior to adding it to the noodle/pea combination, but it seemed to work out in the end. In the future, I will also cut the ham into pieces instead of strips to better fit with the peas. The strips of ham were a bit awkward.

Serving note: the peas have a tendency to fall to the bottom of the pot. And they like to jump off the counter onto the floor, just in time for you to accidently step on them in your bare feet.

Overall, this was a good meal. I found it filling for dinner last night and lunch today. Plus, it earned me a "thank you" for making dinner last night. :) What's not to like?

Apricot Lentil Soup

Recipe #57: http://shop.safeway.com/superstore/sixframeset.asp?mainurl=http://safewaycanada.allrecipes.com/Recipe/recipe.aspx?nprid=12979&pn=recipe&sn=

Wow, my last food entry was in April? Given that today is July 25, I seem to have taken an extended vacation from the kitchen. I blame it on moving halfway across Canada.

Now that I've lived in Calgary for nearly two months, I figured it was time to start experimenting with new recipes again. After all, a girl's gotta eat! Some different grocery stores out here (thank you, Safeway) means a new source for recipe ideas.

Truthfully, I'm not yet sure how this recipe turned out. I mean, I can tell you what it looks like and you can see for yourself in the badly lit photo I post, but I haven't tasted the end product yet. I did, however, give some to some new friends of mine here in town so maybe I'll get a review from them at some point.

As recipes goes, this one is pretty straightforward. The tricky part might be measuring enough lentils if you buy them in bulk like I did, but if you've got excellent lentil karma like me, you'll somehow eyeball out EXACTLY enough lentils at the store. On the good side, you won't be stuck with any pesky leftover lentils; on the flip side, you won't have any lentils to spare if you spill part of the bag all over the counter like I always seem to do.

Also, if you buy your chicken stock in the 900 mL tetra packs like me, you'll have leftovers in the second container. Have a plan to use it soon. I haven't got that far yet...

I wasn't sure whether to chop up the dried apricots for this recipe. The recipe doesn't say to chop them up, but you're dicing the onion and chopping the tomatoes and mincing the garlic which means if you leave the apricots whole like me, they might be kind of odd in the soup as the random big pieces. Unless, of course, if you manage to find them all in the soup and blend them at the end. I didn't.

I actually preferred the colour of the soup prior to adding the lentils when it was just apricots, onions, garlic and broth. I'm not loving the "creamy-ish" appearance that it is now, but as the old saying goes, "Don't judge a soup by its appearance".... or something like that.

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal

Recipe #56: http://www.carnationmilk.ca/recipe-details.aspx?rid=4260

Question: How to use up two cans of evaporated milk in the cupboard?

Answer: this recipe!

Don't mind the photo of what looks like browny-orange sludge. Terrible light in the kitchen tonight....

I didn't have to buy a thing for this recipe. I do enjoy ones like that. The only modification (very slight) that I made was to use one can of skim evaporated milk while the other was 2%. I had no choice; those were all I had on hand.

This recipe is very simple to make, thankfully. I did end up having to cook mine an extra 13 minutes to get (most of) the milk to be absorbed. Maybe it's because my evaporated milks weren't the same, or maybe it was from the really juicy apple I used (Royal Gala, if you care), or maybe it was because today is Tuesday. Who knows?

Considering I just ate dinner and have now burned my mouth while destroying my taste buds by eating Flaming Hot Cheetos (thank you, cross-border shopping), I *think* this recipe tastes pretty good. Truthfully, I can't really taste anything right now and the heat of the Cheetos is making my nose run. I'll have to do a proper sampling in the morning when I sit down to some homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast.

Quick Broccoli and Cheddar Quiche

Recipe #55: http://www.dairygoodness.ca/recipes/quick-broccoli-and-cheddar-quiche

If the previous recipe (Mini Chip Butter Crisps) was about using up butter, this recipe aims to plow through my dozen eggs and giant bar of cheese.

I didn't alter this recipe terribly. I used whole wheat flour and marble cheese because they were already on hand. I smashed some whole wheat crackers that I found in the cupboard and skipped adding the salt. I didn't have any mustard on hand so I shook in "some" mustard powder. I couldn't find my measuring spoons so that's as precise as you'll get. My tomatoes were grape ones, and by using brown eggs, it was easier to find the egg shells in the bowl to fish them out.

When I printed this recipe to have as a reference while cooking, it added a segment that I don't see on the website. It gave me suggestions on how to best arrive at the smashed crackers so I chucked them in a bag and gave them a good beating with my rolling pin. A fun way to make breakfast!

Well, my version of this crust-less quiche is quite good! As a bonus, it's also healthy. I can't really taste any mustard as a stand out flavour so that went well. In fact, I might add more of it next time since there isn't a whole lot of flavour to the whole thing. The only drawback that I should mention is that steeping your tea while the quiche cooks for 30 minutes (because you forgot your tea was steeping) makes for some VERY strong tea. Add a lot of milk...

Mini Chip Butter Crisps

Recipe #54: http://www.dairygoodness.ca/recipes/mini-chip-butter-crisps

Erm, well, my version doesn't look exactly like the photo in the recipe, but mine are still yummy. If you like shortbread or shortbread-esque cookies, you might want to try this one with the whole wheat flour like I did. I don't know what the all-purpose flour version tastes like, but mine is strongly reminiscent of shortbread.

So yes, I used whole wheat flour for my cookies because I don't have any white flour on hand. That's the only substitution I made which is a good thing since there aren't many ingredients! The only drawback to the whole wheat flour is that it's somewhat difficult to discern when the cookies have baked enough. It's all very well to wait until they're golden brown, but if they start out brown, well... I ended up baking all of mine for about 14 minutes per batch.

This recipe is a great way to start using up the 2 lbs of butter that you discovered in the deep freeze while spring cleaning. I recommend the cookies and the cleaning!

Lemon Squares

Recipe #53: http://recipes.runnersworld.com/Recipe/lemon-squares-iii.aspx

I don't normally eat a lot of dessert, but I've got an awful lot of baking ingredients lying around, begging me to use them up. I found this recipe under the "Healthy" section so I thought I'd give it a try.

I think next time, mostly for esthetic reasons, I'll use regular white flour for this recipe. I only had whole wheat flour on hand and wasn't going to go buy more just for this recipe. It does make the crust a little difficult to discern when it has baked to a golden brown, and the lemon topping looks a little weird with whole wheat flour in it, but overall, it doesn't seem to affect the taste and might even enhance the "healthy" factor. I didn't substitute any other ingredients and actually added the salt which I don't normally do when cooking.

I went and bought a pasty blender to try with this recipe, but it didn't really work all that well. It eventually got the job done, but seemed to clog very easily with the ingredients it was supposed to be blending. First time for everything. I managed to separate the egg without incident, but spilled flour and sugar all over the counter when they surged unexpectedly quickly out of their respective bags. I squeezed the lemon into a separate little dish before adding to the big bowl of ingredients which turned out to be a stroke of brilliance on my part. It's easier to pick out the seeds from the smaller bowl.

You might want to read ahead as I failed to do, and notice that you're supposed to pour the filling onto the cooled, baked base. The operative word here is cool because when my filling was ready, my base was still blazing hot, having just recently been snatched from the oven. A trip downstairs to the "cold cellar", and an eventual stay in the freezer finally chilled the temperature enough for my impatient self.

You might notice from my photo that my light dusting of confectioner's sugar is rather heavy-handed. Once again, the sugar threw itself out of the tipped bag in a giant pile before I could correct the angle at which I was pouring it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, the white top helps to disguise the strange appearance of the filling.

The ratio of filling to crust seems a little low to me. While the filling has a nice lemon flavour, there just isn't very much of it and most of my mouthfuls consist of salty-ish crust and excessive amounts of sickeningly sweet icing sugar, the latter being my own fault. I also don't seem to have prepared my pan well enough as I have to fight with my squares to remove them which results in a lot of messy lemon square destruction. Oh well, at least they're tasty.